9/11 Commission - Page 4 - Big Big Forums

Crick · 07-22-2004, 03:04 PM

"Iraq, Afghan connections cited

The highly anticipated, 567-page report provided new details on contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida, noting that bin Laden began exploring a possible alliance in the early 1990s. In one new disclosure, the report says that an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan in July 1998 to meet with the ruling Taliban and with bin Laden.

Intelligence indicates that Iraq may have offered bin Laden safe haven, but he declined after apparently deciding that Afghanistan was a better location. The report says although there were some “friendly contacts” between Iraq and al-Qaida and a common hatred of the United States, none of these contacts “ever developed into a collaborative relationship” and that Iraq was not involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

That question has been the subject of intense political debate, as critics say Bush exaggerated the contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq to justify the war. Bush, and especially Vice President Dick Cheney, insist those links were real and dangerous." Jolie

So if I understand this, a bi-partisan panel ruled that Iraq was not involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, yet Bush and Cheney insist those links were real and dangerous?

My point is when those of us who stated that there was no connection between Iraq and Sept. 11, people came back and insisted there was because Bush and Chaney said so. Now, a bi-partisan panel has said that there wasn't any connection will those same people admit that Bush and Chaney were wrong? (I'm trying to soften my stance and not be to harsh)!

Jolie Rouge · 07-22-2004, 03:41 PM

The highly anticipated, 567-page report provided new details on contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida, noting that bin Laden began exploring a possible alliance in the early 1990s. In one new disclosure, the report says that an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan in July 1998 to meet with the ruling Taliban and with bin Laden.

Intelligence indicates that Iraq may have offered bin Laden safe haven, but he declined after apparently deciding that Afghanistan was a better location. The report says although there were some “friendly contacts” between Iraq and al-Qaida and a common hatred of the United States, none of these contacts “ever developed into a collaborative relationship” and that Iraq was not involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

I posted the report, Crick - I did not write it

As I read it I take it to mean that since there were "friendly contacts" it is the International version of "aiding and abetting" even if Saddamn was not directly involved in the planning or execution of the 9-11 attacks.

It is well known that Saddamn was in the practice of paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers thousands of dollars following successful attacks. Is it possiable he was prepared to do the same for the members of Al-Qaida ?

Jolie Rouge · 07-22-2004, 03:55 PM

911 panel report: 'We must act'
Reforms 'need to be enacted and enacted speedily'
Thursday, July 22, 2004 Posted: 1:49 PM EDT (1749 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...ort/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The chairman of the panel investigating the attacks of September 11, 2001, said his commission found that the "United States government was simply not active enough in combating the terrorist threat before 9/11."

Thomas Kean and his fellow panelists are citing a a "failure of imagination" that they say kept U.S. officials from understanding the al Qaeda threat before the attacks on New York and Washington.

The independent National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States released its findings on Thursday in a 570-page report, which also offers recommendations for reforming U.S. security agencies.

In a news conference Thursday, Kean said that the United States is "faced with one of the greatest security challenges in our long history."

"Every expert with whom we spoke told us an attack of even greater magnitude is now possible and even probable. We do not have the luxury of time," Kean said.

"We must prepare and we must act. The al Qaeda network and its affiliates are sophisticated, patient, disciplined and lethal."

Commission member James Thompson said the proposed reforms were urgent and said Congress and the president have a duty to act quickly.

"If these reforms are not the best that can be done for the American people, then the Congress and the president need to tell us what's better," the former Illinois governor said.

"But if there is nothing better, they need to be enacted and enacted speedily because if something bad happens while these recommendations are sitting there, the American people will quickly fix political responsibility for failure and that responsibility may last for generations and they will be entitled to do that."

Commission member Jamie Gorelick said the panel has made a strong effort to show the factual basis behind the recommendations.

She warned that "policymakers ignore that at their peril.

"There are bad consequences to being in the middle of a political season and there are also good ones," she said, "because everyone who is running for office can be asked, 'Do you support these recommendations?'"

Earlier, Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton briefed President Bush on the report Thursday morning and presented a copy to him in the White House Rose Garden.

Bush told reporters that the report contained "some very constructive recommendations" about changing U.S. intelligence and domestic security agencies.

"I look forward to studying their recommendations and look forward to working with responsible parties within my administration to move forward on those recommendations," Bush said.

As expected, the report calls for a national intelligence chief and a counterterrorism center modeled on the military's unified commands.

It also proposes that a joint congressional committee be created to oversee homeland security.

Bush said he would study its recommendations and "where the government needs to act, we will."

The report concluded that the emergence of al Qaeda in the late 1990s "presented challenges to U.S. governmental institutions that they were not well-designed to meet."

"The most important failure was one of imagination," commissioners wrote. "We do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat."

The report concluded that although "imagination is not usually a gift associated with bureaucracies," because previous al Qaeda attacks used vehicles to deliver explosives, "the leap to the use of other vehicles such as boats ... or planes is not far-fetched."

The unanimous report of the 10-member, bipartisan panel found that neither Bush nor predecessor President Bill Clinton grasped the depth of the terrorist threat posed before the suicide hijackings that killed almost 3,000 people.

"Given the character and pace of their policy efforts, we do not believe they fully understood just how many people al Qaeda might kill, and how soon it might do it," the commission found. "At some level that is hard to define, we believe the threat had not yet become compelling."

It also said there were limits to what the CIA was able to achieve by using proxies to try to capture Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants in Afghanistan.

Commissioners found that terrorism was not the overriding national security concern for the U.S. government before the attacks and that missed opportunities to thwart the hijackings were symptoms of a broader inability by the government to adapt to new challenges.

Missed opportunities

The report lists missed "operational opportunities" it said could have hindered or broken up the plot, blamed largely on lack of communication between the CIA and FBI. "Information was not shared, sometimes inadvertently or because of legal misunderstandings," commissioners found.

"Analysis was not pooled. Effective operations were not launched. Often, the hand-offs of information were lost across the divide separating the foreign and domestic agencies of the government."

It says the CIA did not put 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar on a "watch list" or notify the FBI when it learned he had a U.S. visa in January 2000.

Nor did it develop plans to track Almihdhar or hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi when they learned he had obtained a U.S. visa and flown to Los Angeles, or notify the FBI when it learned in January 2001 that Almihdhar had met with a major figure in the plot to bomb the USS Cole in Yemen.

For its part, the report found the FBI failed to recognize the significance of Almihdhar and Alhazmi's arrival in the United States or the significance of al Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui's training and beliefs after his arrest in Minnesota in August 2001. Nor did it tie information about those three men "to the general threat reporting about imminent attacks."

"Since the plotters were flexible and resourceful, we cannot know whether any single step or series of steps would have defeated them. What we can say with a good deal of confidence is that none of the measures adopted by the United States government before 9/11 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al Qaeda plot," Kean said.

The document will be on sale in bookstores for $10. It will also be available online and through the Government Printing Office.

The bipartisan panel was established by Congress to investigate the events before, during and immediately after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

John King and Elaine Quijano contributed to this report.

KEY FINDINGS

U.S. leaders did not understand the "gravity of the threat."

The United States wasn't prepared to meet al Qaeda's challenges.

Terrorism wasn't the chief security concern of the Bush or Clinton administrations.

Failures to thwart 9/11 highlight agencies' inability to adapt to new problems.

CIA effectiveness was limited by use of intermediaries to pursue Osama bin Laden.

Information and analysis wasn't shared across agencies.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

Establish a Cabinet-level intelligence director

Establish a single counterterrorism center

Create a single, joint congressional committee to oversee homeland security

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Two hijackers weren't put on watch lists before arriving in the United States.

Hijackers weren't trailed once here.

Information linking known terrorists to a hijacker wasn't shared.

Zacarias Moussaoui's arrest wasn't linked to a heightened threat.

False statements on visa applications weren't discovered.

Manipulated passports weren't recognized.

No-fly lists weren't updated with names from terrorist watch lists.

Airline passengers weren't thoroughly screened.

Planes weren't prepared for the possibility of suicide hijackings.

Jolie Rouge · 07-22-2004, 04:02 PM

Quote:

The document will be on sale in bookstores for $10. It will also be available online and through the Government Printing Office.

$10.00 in a bookstore ??

HA !

This is a FREEBIES site --

Chapter by chapter: The 9/11 commission report

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/07/22/9.1...ort/index.html

Full text of 9/11 commission report. All files are PDF.

Executive Summary (5.9 MB)

Contents, List of Illustrations and Tables, Members, and Staff (233 KB)

Preface (67 KB)

Chapter 1: "We Have Some Planes" (952 KB)

Chapter 2: The Foundation of the New Terrorism (1.44 MB)

Chapter 3: Counterterrorism Evolves (188 KB)

Chapter 4: Responses to al Qaeda's Initial Assaults (185 KB)

Chapter 5: Al Qaeda Aims at the American Homeland (312 KB)

Chapter 6: From Threat to Threat (209 KB)

Chapter 7: The Attack Looms (949 KB)

Chapter 8: "The System Was Blinking Red" (146 KB)

Chapter 9: Heroism and Horror (2.3 MB)

Chapter 10: Wartime (109 KB)

Chapter 11: Foresight--and Hindsight (133 KB)

Chapter 12: What to do? A Global Strategy (184 KB)

Chapter 13: How to do it? A Different Way of Organizing the Government (158 KB)

Appendices (109 KB)

Notes (669 KB)

Full report (7.4 MB)

Crick · 07-22-2004, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

The highly anticipated, 567-page report provided new details on contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida, noting that bin Laden began exploring a possible alliance in the early 1990s. In one new disclosure, the report says that an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan in July 1998 to meet with the ruling Taliban and with bin Laden.

Intelligence indicates that Iraq may have offered bin Laden safe haven, but he declined after apparently deciding that Afghanistan was a better location. The report says although there were some “friendly contacts” between Iraq and al-Qaida and a common hatred of the United States, none of these contacts “ever developed into a collaborative relationship” and that Iraq was not involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

I posted the report, Crick - I did not write it

As I read it I take it to mean that since there were "friendly contacts" it is the International version of "aiding and abetting" even if Saddamn was not directly involved in the planning or execution of the 9-11 attacks.

It is well known that Saddamn was in the practice of paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers thousands of dollars following successful attacks. Is it possiable he was prepared to do the same for the members of Al-Qaida ?

Again the report states "none of these contacts ever developed into a collaborative relationship. And that Iraq was not involved in the Sept. 11 attacks." Therefore the panel concluded that the ties Bush and Chaney pushed were unfounded. I appreciate you posting this so people can see the conclusion (and the truth) that the bi-partisian panel came to.

I appreciate you posting that particular passage out of a 567 page report!

Jolie Rouge · 07-23-2004, 01:49 AM

Bush Agrees With 9/11 Panel's Conclusion
By DEB RIECHMANN

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...25.htm&sc=1151

GLENVIEW, Ill. (AP) - President Bush on Thursday acknowledged ``deep institutional failures'' in the nation's defense that led to the 2001 terrorist attacks, and he said he would seriously consider the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations to better anticipate threats. ``The job's not done, and this report will help our country identify even more steps to better defend America,'' Bush said.

He was silent, however, on one of the panel's key recommendations - to create a Cabinet-level national intelligence director, who would oversee the 15-agency intelligence community. The idea got a cool response on Wednesday from Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who said, ``I don't think you need a czar.''

Bush said the panel's report was ``serious and comprehensive.'' He called for better coordination among intelligence agencies, increased collection of intelligence by humans and better technology to track enemies anywhere in the world. ``I agree with their conclusion that the terrorists were able to exploit `deep institutional failings' in our nation's defenses that developed over more than a decade,'' Bush said.

``We will give serious consideration to every idea because we share a common goal - to do everything in our power to prepare for and to stop any terrorist attack.''

Bracing Americans for the possibility of another terrorist attack, Bush said: ``They intend to strike the United States again. They're seeking increasingly powerful weapons that would allow them to kill our citizens on an unprecedented scale. That's the reality of the world we live in today.''

Bush spoke at Northeastern Illinois Public Safety Training Academy here just hours after the independent panel released its 575-page tome in Washington. While the panel's report focused Americans on the nation's vulnerability to attack, Bush highlighted steps he says he's taken to better safeguard the nation.

He said the administration has:

Melded more than 20 agencies with 180,000 personnel into a single Department of Homeland Security.

Spent millions of dollars to equip first-responders and help them communicate.

Made improvements at ports.

Helped develop and stockpile vaccines and antidotes for chemical and germ weapons.

Found faster ways to send local officials information on evolving threats.

Refocused the FBI on homeland defense, and improved the way investigators share information.

``We will work tirelessly to disrupt and prevent terrorist attacks, and if an attack should come, America will be prepared,'' Bush said.

His words seemed a direct response to a four-word conclusion in the executive summary of the report: ``The nation was unprepared.''

Bush fought the creation of the panel, resisted the release of documents and battled against letting national security adviser Condoleezza Rice address the panel. At a Rose Garden ceremony earlier in the day, however, Commission Chairman Thomas Kean praised the president for allowing ``unprecedented access to documents.''

The panel faulted long-running intelligence lapses that gave the hijackers an opening to attack. It described shortcomings of both the Bush and Clinton administrations, but did not affix blame to either president.

Asked whether Bush believed his administration could have done anything differently in the months leading up to the attacks, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the blame blankets several presidencies. ``You're sitting here trying to play a blame-casting game,'' he said. ``That's not the purpose of the report. The report points out that the blame lies squarely, lies squarely with al-Qaida.''

In his response to the report, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry said he would restore alliances to share the burden of fighting terrorism, better coordinate intelligence agencies and strengthen homeland defenses. He supports the panel's recommendation for a national intelligence director.

Kerry said the challenge ranges ``From better protecting our transportation systems, to safeguarding our ports and infrastructure, to improving our emergency communications systems and integrating our watch lists, to providing our first responders with the resources they need to do their jobs.''

Bush on Thursday also signed an executive order instructing government agencies to consider the needs of people with disabilities when preparing responses to emergencies, such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks.

07/22/04 23:10

Jolie Rouge · 07-24-2004, 02:18 AM

Flight 93 Saved U.S. From Greater Horror
By MARK SHERMAN

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...41.htm&sc=1110

WASHINGTON (AP) - America would have been even more devastated that sunny September morning - the Capitol aflame or the White House destroyed - if not for a few dozen strangers on an airplane who took the kind of quick, decisive action their government was incapable of on Sept. 11.

Nearly three years on, the passenger revolt against the hijackers on United Flight 93 stands out as a moment of honor and as a success story - if that term can be used to describe the deaths of 44 people - among the glaring government failures.

There were, of course, many heroes that day: the police, firefighters and rescue workers who risked and lost their own lives to help others. It does not diminish those feats to point out that emergency workers train for those moments. In some sense, their heroism is expected, part of a shared culture of valor.

The people aboard Flight 93 shared only a common destination, San Francisco, and no expectation of doing anything that morning other than sitting back and enjoying the flight.

Instead, aboard the hijacked Boeing 757, passengers took pre-emptive action that spared the nation even more destruction and death at a pillar of U.S. democracy. Their action also gave Americans conviction that they, too, could fight back against terrorists.

And, as the final report of the Sept. 11 commission makes clear, the passengers' actions displayed a small group's ability to quickly grasp something brand-new, figure out what it meant and dream up and execute a plan at a moment of extreme stress and unimaginable fear.

The report, released Thursday by the 10-member bipartisan panel after a 20-month investigation, cited multiple intelligence failures that contributed to the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history and caught citizens and government officials alike off guard.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed when 19 hijackers flew airliners into New York's Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside.

The report shows that on at least one other plane, United Flight 175, some passengers correctly surmised what was happening and what had to be done.

Minutes before that plane struck the World Trade Center, passenger Brian David Sweeney told his mother that the passengers were thinking about storming the cockpit to take control of the plane away from the hijackers, the Sept. 11 report says.

During Peter Hanson's haunting last telephone conversation with his father, he said, ``I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building. Don't worry, Dad. If it happens, it'll be very fast - my God, my God.''

Moments later, Flight 175 became the second plane to crash into a World Trade Center tower.

Flight 93 was the last of the four planes to be commandeered by al-Qaida terrorists. In the passengers' final, heartrending telephone conversations with family members, information was flowing both ways. The Twin Towers were already on fire and the passengers learned of that.

In deciding to rush the cockpit, the passengers, thinking quickly, knew or could guess that these hijackers, too, intended to turn the plane into a missile. They also could have reasoned that they were not altering their own fates. They probably were going to die in a fiery crash.

And what did they do first? They took a vote before they took on the hijackers.

Their actions caused the hijackers to give up on their plan to fly to Washington and deliberately slam the plane into a Pennsylvania field.

No one knows how many lives they saved. But at the intended target, confusion reigned.

Hundreds of people were at the White House and Capitol on Sept. 11, trying to make sense of what they were watching on television from New York and the black smoke they could see rising from the Pentagon.

Police ordered the evacuation of the Capitol after the Pentagon was hit, but it was chaotic.

The Air Force has maintained that fighter jets that had belatedly been sent aloft to intercept the hijacked planes would have shot down Flight 93 before it reached Washington.

``We are not so sure,'' the Sept. 11 commission said. ``We are sure that the nation owes a debt to the passengers of United 93. Their actions saved the lives of countless others, and may have saved either the Capitol or the White House from destruction.''

07/23/04 22:08

Jolie Rouge · 07-25-2004, 12:36 AM

Sept. 11 Panel Addresses Lewinsky Scandal
By DEB RIECHMANN

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Sept. 11 commission's final report says there's no evidence suggesting President Bill Clinton ordered airstrikes on Osama bin Laden targets to distract attention from his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

But the report says the affair, coupled with other issues, likely affected later discussions about using force against the terrorist leader.

Following U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the Clinton administration planned and launched cruise missile strikes on alleged terrorist assets of bin Laden in Sudan and Afghanistan. The report said reaction to the Aug. 20, 1998, strikes included ``scalding criticism'' that the action was ``too aggressive.''

``At the time, President Clinton was embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal, which continued to consume public attention for the rest of that year and the first months of 1999,'' the report said. ``As it happened, a popular 1997 movie, 'Wag the Dog,' features a president who fakes a war to distract public attention from a domestic scandal. Some Republicans in Congress raised questions about the timing of the strikes.''

In testimony, Clinton aides told the commissioners that their advice to Clinton about the airstrikes was based solely on national security considerations. ``We have found no reason to question their statements,'' the commissioners said.

The commission's final report treads lightly on Clinton's affair with the one-time White House intern, which led to his impeachment and later acquittal by the Senate. Although only tiny sections of the report refer to the affair, the commissioners spent a lot of time discussing how and whether to discuss it in the report, deciding, in the end, that it was important to do so.

``The language was carefully chosen,'' Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director, said Friday. ``We wanted to flag it and note its significance.''

In a chapter cataloguing initial U.S. responses to al-Qaida assaults, the report said that by the early morning hours of Aug. 20, 1998, Clinton and all his principal advisers were agreed to strike the bin Laden camps in Afghanistan near Khowst, as well as al Shifa, a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan.

Intelligence reports said the plant was ``manufacturing a precursor ingredient for nerve gas with bin Laden's financial support,'' although the commission said no independent evidence has emerged to corroborate this assessment.

``The air strikes marked the climax of an intense 48-hour period in which (former national security adviser Sandy) Berger notified congressional leaders, the principals called their foreign counterparts, and President Clinton flew back from his vacation on Martha's Vineyard to address the nation from the Oval Office,'' the report said.

The report said everyone involved in the decision to strike were aware of Clinton's problems.

``He told them to ignore them,'' the report said. Berger recalled the president saying to him ``that they were going to get crap either way, so they should do the right thing.''

While the commission said it found no reason to doubt the motivation of Clinton and his advisers, their report stated: ``The failure of the strikes, the 'wag the dog' slur, the intense partisanship of the period and the nature of the al Shifa evidence likely had a cumulative effect on future decisions about the use of force against bin Laden. Berger told us that he did not feel any sense of constraint.''

07/24/04 02:29

kvmj · 07-28-2004, 08:05 AM

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Honorable Commission, Toothless Report
By RICHARD A. CLARKE

Published: July 25, 2004

Americans owe the 9/11 commission a deep debt for its extensive exposition of the facts surrounding the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. Yet, because the commission had a goal of creating a unanimous report from a bipartisan group, it softened the edges and left it to the public to draw many conclusions.

Among the obvious truths that were documented but unarticulated were the facts that the Bush administration did little on terrorism before 9/11, and that by invading Iraq the administration has left us less safe as a nation. (Fortunately, opinion polls show that the majority of Americans have already come to these conclusions on their own. )

What the commissioners did clearly state was that Iraq had no collaborative relationship with Al Qaeda and no hand in 9/11. They also disclosed that Iran provided support to Al Qaeda, including to some 9/11 hijackers. These two facts may cause many people to conclude that the Bush administration focused on the wrong country. They would be right to think that.

So what now? News coverage of the commission's recommendations has focused on the organizational improvements: a new cabinet-level national intelligence director and a new National Counterterrorism Center to ensure that our 15 or so intelligence agencies play well together. Both are good ideas, but they are purely incremental. Had these changes been made six years ago, they would not have significantly altered the way we dealt with Al Qaeda; they certainly would not have prevented 9/11. Putting these recommendations in place will marginally improve our ability to crush the new, decentralized Al Qaeda, but there are other changes that would help more.

First, we need not only a more powerful person at the top of the intelligence community, but also more capable people throughout the agencies - especially the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency. In other branches of the government, employees can and do join on as mid- and senior-level managers after beginning their careers and gaining experience elsewhere. But at the F.B.I. and C.I.A., the key posts are held almost exclusively by those who joined young and worked their way up. This has created uniformity, insularity, risk-aversion, torpidity and often mediocrity.

The only way to infuse these key agencies with creative new blood is to overhaul their hiring and promotion practices to attract workers who don't suffer the "failures of imagination" that the 9/11 commissioners repeatedly blame for past failures.

Second, in addition to separating the job of C.I.A. director from the overall head of American intelligence, we must also place the C.I.A.'s analysts in an agency that is independent from the one that collects the intelligence. This is the only way to avoid the "groupthink" that hampered the agency's ability to report accurately on Iraq. It is no accident that the only intelligence agency that got it right on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department - a small, elite group of analysts encouraged to be independent thinkers rather than spies or policy makers.

Analysts aren't the only ones who should be reconstituted in small, elite groups. Either the C.I.A. or the military must create a larger and more capable commando force for covert antiterrorism work, along with a network of agents and front companies working under "nonofficial cover'' - that is, without diplomatic protection - to support the commandos.

Even more important than any bureaucratic suggestions is the report's cogent discussion of who the enemy is and what strategies we need in the fight. The commission properly identified the threat not as terrorism (which is a tactic, not an enemy), but as Islamic jihadism, which must be defeated in a battle of ideas as well as in armed conflict.

We need to expose the Islamic world to values that are more attractive than those of the jihadists. This means aiding economic development and political openness in Muslim countries, and efforts to stabilize places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Restarting the Israel-Palestinian peace process is also vital.

Also, we can't do this alone. In addition to "hearts and minds" television and radio programming by the American government, we would be greatly helped by a pan-Islamic council of respected spiritual and secular leaders to coordinate (without United States involvement) the Islamic world's own ideological effort against the new Al Qaeda.

Unfortunately, because of America's low standing in the Islamic world, we are now at a great disadvantage in the battle of ideas. This is primarily because of the unnecessary and counterproductive invasion of Iraq. In pulling its bipartisan punches, the commission failed to admit the obvious: we are less capable of defeating the jihadists because of the Iraq war.

Unanimity has its value, but so do debate and dissent in a democracy facing a crisis. To fully realize the potential of the commission's report, we must see it not as the end of the discussion but as a partial blueprint for victory. The jihadist enemy has learned how to spread hate and how to kill - and it is still doing both very effectively three years after 9/11.

Richard A. Clarke, former head of counterterrorism at the National Security Council, is the author of "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror."

Jolie Rouge · 07-28-2004, 01:30 PM

Berger: Incident Was 'Honest Mistake'
By CURT ANDERSON

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/...131&idq=/ff/st ory/0001%2F20040721%2F1253728608.htm&sc=1131&photoid=1 9980222WX104

WASHINGTON (AP) - Former national security adviser Sandy Berger says he regrets the way he handled classified terrorism documents, calling the whole thing ``an honest mistake.'' Republicans say the matter raises questions about whether the former Clinton administration official sought to hide embarrassing materials.

``What information could be so embarrassing that a man with decades of experience in handling classified documents would risk being caught pilfering our nation's most sensitive secrets?'' House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said. ``Mr. Berger has a lot of explaining to do.''

The Justice Department is investigating whether Berger committed a crime by removing from the National Archives copies of documents about the government's anti-terror efforts and notes that he took on those documents. Berger was reviewing the materials to help determine which Clinton administration documents to provide to the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

When news of the investigation surfaced, Berger on Tuesday quit as an informal adviser to John Kerry's presidential campaign to limit the political fallout.

Kerry said later, ``Sandy Berger is my friend, and he has tirelessly served this nation with honor and distinction. I respect his decision to step aside as an adviser to this campaign until this matter is resolved objectively and fairly.''

Berger told reporters he was not guilty of criminal wrongdoing.

``Last year, when I was in the Archives reviewing documents, I made an honest mistake. It's one that I deeply regret,'' Berger said. ``I dealt with this issue in October 2003 fully and completely. Everything that I have done all along in this process has been for the purpose of aiding and supporting the work of the 9/11 commission, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply, absolutely wrong.''

Many Democrats, including former President Clinton himself, suggested that politics were behind disclosure of the probe only days before Thursday's scheduled release of the Sept. 11 commission report. That report is expected to be highly critical of the government's response to the growing al-Qaida threat, a potential blow to President Bush's re-election campaign.

``It's interesting timing,'' Clinton said at a Denver autograph session for his book, ``My Life.'' Berger served as national security adviser for all of Clinton's second term.

Berger and his lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said the former Clinton adviser knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket and pants and inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio. He returned most of the documents, but some still are missing.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, told reporters the case was about theft and questioned a statement by Berger issued Monday attributing the removal of the documents and notes to sloppiness.

``I think it's gravely, gravely serious what he did, if he did it. It could be a national security crisis,'' DeLay said.

Asked to comment on that Wednesday, Breuer said he was ``very disappointed with this reaction.''

``This matter is a year old,'' he said on NBC's ``Today'' show.

``Never once, in all my discussions with the Justice Department has there been any assertion like that,'' Breuer said. ``It was an advertent mistake ... All I can tell you is that when this matter started a year ago, I said to the Department of Justice that we were going to deal with this in good faith, that we wouldn't go to the press and that we wouldn't make this political .... and then suddenly, days before the 9/11 commission report comes out, this is leaked.''

The documents involved have been a key point of contention between the Clinton and Bush administrations on the question of who responded more forcefully to the threat of al-Qaida terrorism. Written by former National Security Council aide Richard Clarke, they discuss the 1999 plot to attack U.S. millennium celebrations and offer more than two dozen recommendations for improving the response to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

In his April 13 testimony to the Sept. 11 commission, Attorney General John Ashcroft said the review ``warns the prior administration of a substantial al-Qaida network'' in the United States. Ashcroft said it also recommends such things as using tougher visa and border controls and prosecutions of immigration violations and minor criminal charges to disrupt terror cells.

``These are the same aggressive, often-criticized law enforcement tactics that we have unleashed for 31 months to stop another al-Qaida attack,'' Ashcroft told the panel. He added that he never saw the documents before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Berger said in his March 23 testimony to the commission that Clinton submitted a $300 million supplemental budget to Congress to pay for implementing many of the documents' recommendations. Berger acknowledged, however, that not all of them were accomplished.

In his statement Monday, Berger said that every Clinton administration document requested by the Sept. 11 commission was provided to the panel. Berger also said he returned some classified documents and all his handwritten notes when he was asked about them, except for two or three copies of the millennium report that may have been thrown away.

Al Felzenberg, spokesman for the Sept. 11 commission, said the Berger investigation will have no bearing on the panel's report.

On the Net:

Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov

Sept. 11 commission: http://www.9-11commission.gov

07/21/04 12:53

Jolie Rouge · 07-30-2004, 01:30 AM

White House moves on 9/11 report
Aides drafting executive orders
Thursday, July 29, 2004 Posted: 2:14 PM EDT (1814 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/....ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wrapping up a weeklong vacation on his Texas ranch, President Bush on Thursday led a videoconference meeting of his working group on the September 11 commission's recommendations.

Spokesman Trent Duffy said the group was making "great progress," but he would not elaborate on how close Bush was to receiving or approving executive orders implementing some recommendations.

Administration officials have said that presidential approval of some of the changes suggested by the commission could come by early next week.

The White House, pressed by victims' families and by Democrat John Kerry, is eager to show it is moving on the politically sensitive issue. A working group created by Bush to study the commission's recommendations met by videoconference twice Wednesday, once with Bush participating.

Any orders signed by Bush would immediately put into place some proposals made by the September 11 commission. A senior administration official said aides were finishing draft versions to present to Bush, who would adopt some or all of them soon.

Kerry, Bush's opponent in the presidential campaign, says Bush should implement the commission's proposals immediately. Kerry also wants the panel's life extended 18 months to ensure reforms are adopted. (Kerry wants to expand commission)

The Family Steering Committee, activist families who lobbied successfully for an independent commission to investigate the attacks, stepped up pressure on lawmakers to take action on recommendations that need congressional approval. They said they would draw up a watch list of Congress members who oppose legislation to implement September 11 commission recommendations.

"We're going to watch events unfold in Congress, and we want America to watch as well," said Lorie Van Auken, who lost her husband at the World Trade Center. "We need to have a list of the lawmakers. ... We need to follow who's opposing and disagreeing and why."

Talk of keeping public track of congressional opponents comes even before legislation has been offered to implement the recommendations, a sign of how intent some September 11 families are to maintain the momentum of public opinion for quick changes.

"This watchdog list, this report card, it's a shame that it's come to this, but we want to work with everyone to ensure that people aren't just feigning cooperation," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of the most outspoken advocates among September 11 families.

Already, pressure from the families has produced results.

When the commission released its 567-page report last week, Congress had planned to be away for all of August. But several committees quickly scheduled a return to Washington to hold hearings on the panel's findings.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, announced even more Wednesday. He said at least six committees will hold at least 15 hearings in August on such issues as information sharing, terror financing, intelligence analysis and government reorganization. In a statement, he anticipated congressional action on legislative recommendations in September and October.

The commission's final report urges rapid fundamental changes in how the legislative and executive branches oversee the nation's intelligence apparatus, asking that oversight be consolidated into one group of lawmakers, with one person in the White House who answers directly to the president.

Bush, vacationing in Crawford, Texas, has said he will study the proposals but has stopped short of endorsing them.

Several of the working group members, including acting CIA Director John McLaughlin, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General John Ashcroft, had met Wednesday at the White House. (Bush, advisers review 9/11 report proposals)

They were linked by videoconference to several top officials who were outside the White House, including the head of the working group, White House chief of staff Andy Card; Secretary of State Colin Powell, traveling overseas; and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who was with Bush on his Texas ranch.